Flagship (14 page)

"I hate to admit it, but it's got possibilities."

"Also, once you get more ships, you can coordinate your attacks. Say you have two Republic worlds in neighboring systems. Start harassing one until help arrives from the other, and then have the other half of your team hit the other."

"Okay, I'm convinced," said the Octopus.

"Just one thing," said Cole.

"Yeah?"

"I don't want you to engage in any pitched battles. The whole point is to keep them off balance, keep them guessing about our strength and our whereabouts until we're ready to do something major."

"Are
we doing something major?" asked the Octopus.

"When the time comes."

"And we're not going to die of old age before then?"

"I'm
not," said Cole. "You could be a lot older than you look."

The Octopus laughed. "All right," he said at last. "No pitched battles."

"Okay," said Cole. "By tomorrow we'll have your ship."

The Octopus got to his feet. "I'm going back to your mess hall," he said. "You wouldn't believe the slop they fed us back on Malagori."

"Of course I would," replied Cole. The Octopus stared questioningly at him. "I was a serving officer for eighteen years. I
know
what passes for food in the Navy."

The Octopus laughed and left the office. As soon as the door snapped shut Sharon's image appeared in front of Cole.

"You were eavesdropping, of course?" said Cole.

"Of course."

"And?"

"I don't know, Wilson," she said. "He's like Val but without her skills. How long do you think he can keep his word before he does something really dumb?"

"He functioned for years on the Frontier," replied Cole. "I think he's just having a little trouble adjusting to a new situation. Where he comes from, no one could match forces with him."

"How fast a learner is he?"

Cole shrugged. "We'll find out. If they capture him again, he's on his own. We can't keep rescuing him. We've got more important things to do."

"Do
you have a master plan?"

"I wouldn't call it that," said Cole. "There are too many variables."

"But you know what you
want
to do."

"I want to win the war."

"You know, sometimes you can be very annoying to talk to. I think the Octopus had a point."

"Probably he did."

"Damn it, Wilson! Why won't you tell me?"

"For the same reason I won't tell Jacovic or Val or any of the others," said Cole. "If you're captured, I don't want them to be able to extract it from you the way we extracted information from Alberto Torres."

She stared at him. "I love you," she said at last, "but you can be a cold son of a bitch."

"It goes with command," said Cole. "I liked myself much better when other people got to make these decisions." He got to his feet. "I think it's time to go to work again. We're not going to run out of air or food, but in a couple of days it's going to
feel
like we will. Let's get the Octopus his ship, and move his crew the hell off ours."

He left the office and was going to direct the operation from the mess hall, which was his preferred command station, but he remembered that the Octopus was there so he went to the bridge instead. Val was now on duty, Jacovic was either eating or sleeping, and Meloctin seemed completely comfortable at Christine's computer.

"Val," he said, "start hunting for a cargo ship, something big enough to hold eighty men if we dump the contents."

"It shouldn't be that hard," she said. "Delamere IV is an agricultural world. There should be a steady supply of cargo ships."

"Just pinpoint it," said Cole. "No shooting. We need it intact."

"Gotcha."

Meloctin had adjusted to the lack of salutes, but he seemed a little shocked by "Gotcha" rather than "Yes, sir." Cole smiled and decided that the Lodinite would get used to Val before long.

Nothing happened for almost an hour, and then Val spotted a cargo ship.

"Incoming," she announced. "It's out by Delamere VII now." She turned to Cole. "Couldn't be better. He'll be deadheading until he can load mutated corn and wheat into his ship, so we won't have to dump a bunch of stuff that can be traced."

"Good point," said Cole. "All right, let's intercept him near one of those Delamere VI moons."

The
Teddy R
jumped ahead, and was waiting for the cargo ship as it neared the sixth planet of the system. Cole ordered it to stop, it refused, and he fired a laser beam across its bow.
That
stopped it.

It turned out that the pilot, a woman named Gentry, was the only entity on the ship. She'd made a short jump from the neighboring Kilgore system, and would be replaced by a fresh pilot once the ship was loaded.

As the Octopus and his men transferred to the cargo ship, Gentry was brought to the bridge, where Cole was waiting for her.

"You're going to be our guest for a few days," he told her. "I'm not going to put you off on some uninhabited world where you'd live and die alone and undiscovered, and I can't drop you on a Republic world where you can report what happened, so you're going to stay aboard the
Theodore Roosevelt
until my friends have had time to change your ship's appearance and registration and to leave the vicinity. If you accept our terms and behave yourself, you won't be confined to the brig, but will be given a cabin and treated with every courtesy."

"The
Theodore Roosevelt
?" she said, her eyes widening. "Are you really Wilson Cole?"

"Yes."

"I expected something with horns and a tail," said Gentry. She paused for a moment, considering her options. "I accept your terms."

"Rachel," said Cole on the ship's intercom. "Please come to the bridge, and escort our guest to an empty cabin."

"They're all a mess, sir," replied Rachel. "The Octopus's men are many things, but neat isn't one of them."

"That's all right," said Cole. "Our guest is going to have a lot of time on her hands. I'm sure she won't mind cleaning her cabin."

Rachel arrived a moment later and led Gentry off the bridge to an airlift.

"We're on our way," said the Octopus, and Cole saw from his image that he was on the cargo ship.

"Not just yet," said Cole. "Mr. Briggs will be boarding your ship in a minute or two to put our codes into your computer."

"Sure, why not?" said the Octopus with a shrug. "Hell, what's another hour?"

At it turned out, it took Briggs only forty minutes, and then the Octopus took off for a new system where he planned to disguise the ship, create a new registration, and acquire a few new cargo ships.

"What now?" asked Val when the Octopus had left. "Now the distractions are over, and we get back to fighting the war," said Cole.

Val stared at him. "Why do I assume when you say that, you're not talking about blowing up ships and leveling enemy cities?"

"Because you're learning," answered Cole.

"Sir?" said Rachel Marcos. She was standing in the doorway of the mess hall.

Cole, the only occupant, looked up from his coffee. "What is it?"

"We have a matter of some sensitivity," she said, approaching and sitting down across from him. "I don't know how widespread the knowledge of it may be, so I didn't want to discuss it from the bridge, where we could be overheard."

He stared at her curiously. "All right, what is it?"

"We have two men who may or may not be prisoners," she continued. "Nobody knows—or, rather, nobody but you."

"What the hell are you talking about, Rachel?"

"Mr. Brill and Mr. Dunyach, sir," she replied. "They've been confined to quarters since before we rescued the Octopus on Malagori V."

"Hell, I'd forgotten all about them," said Cole. "We've been a little busy in the interim. I promised to set them down on a neutral planet. We haven't come to one." He frowned. "In fact, the deeper into the Republic we go, the less likely we are to find one. I'll have to think about this."

"Maybe I can help," said Sharon's voice, and her image appeared a moment later.

"How?" asked Cole.

"I stopped by their cabins a couple of hours ago to make sure they were being fed on schedule and had been well treated. They asked me to ask you if they can remain on board. Their feelings haven't changed; they still want to do what they can to bring about the end of the Republic."

Cole looked at Rachel. "That'll be all, Rachel."

She saluted and left.

"So what are you going to do?" asked Sharon. "As you pointed out, it's going to be difficult to find a world where we can drop them."

"Difficult," he repeated. "Not impossible."

"They want to stay on the
Teddy R
and make war against the Republic."

"Damn it, Sharon!" he said, clearly annoyed. "They disobeyed a direct order from their Captain in the middle of enemy territory! There has to be a consequence!"

"All right," she said. "Then let's dump them on an agricultural world and be done with them—but you can't just keep them confined indefinitely for taking a stand on a matter of principle."

He stared at her image for a long moment. "How's Torres doing?"

"He seems fine," she said. "More than a little ashamed that he gave us the information, but physically he's just about recovered."

"So we did our worst, and he's fine," said Cole. "And if they'd had their way, he'd still be fine but eighty men would be dead."

"I'm not arguing that, Wilson," she said angrily. "Hell, I was an active participant! I'm just saying that we might not return to the Inner Frontier for a year or two, if then. You can't keep them confined to their cabins until then."

"All right," he said. "Let me think about it."

"If you want my opinion—"

"I know your opinion," he growled. "Now leave me alone."

She broke the communication, and Cole sat alone in the mess hall, considering his options. Finally he put through a call to Miguel Flores, whose ship was half a light-year away. They spoke for a few minutes, and then he ended the connection.

"Sharon?"

"Yes?" she replied.

"No sense doing this in front of the crew. Bring them down to my office."

"We'll be there in five minutes," she said, signing off.

He left his cup for the servo-mech to clean up, approached the airlift, descended another level, got off, and walked to his office. The security system read his retina, weight, and bone structure and let him in.

He seated himself at his desk, ordered the door to remain open, and waited. Sharon arrived shortly thereafter, accompanied by Brill and Dunyach.

Cole studied the two men for a moment. They seemed none the worse for their confinement.

"I understand you two have a request," he said at last.

"Yes, sir," said Brill. "We're here because we agreed to go to war against the Republic. That hasn't changed." He paused, as if gathering his courage. "We would like to be allowed to remain on the
Teddy R
and return to our duties."

"What will happen the next time I give you an order you don't like?" asked Cole.

Brill met his gaze without blinking. "If it's the same order, you will get the same response."

Cole turned to Dunyach. "Is he speaking for you, too?"

"Yes, sir," said Dunyach. "I'm sorry, but you gave me an order that I could not obey."

"I respect you for that," said Cole. "And I wish it hadn't been necessary. But eighty lives were at stake."

"He might have talked anyway, sir."

"He might have," agreed Cole. "But we don't know that, and in my opinion, we couldn't take the chance. And the fact of the matter is that on this ship, it's my opinion that counts."

"Then will you be setting us down on a planet, sir?" asked Brill.

"Possibly," said Cole. "But as I told Colonel Blacksmith, I respect you for sticking to your ethical principles, and I also realize we need every man we can get in this crusade."

"Then we
can
go back to our jobs?" asked Dunyach, confused.

Cole shook his head. "No. You disobeyed a direct order, and you just told me if you receive another order that is contrary to your ethical precepts, you'll disobey it as well. I can't have you on the
Teddy R."

"Then I don't understand, sir," said Brill.

"I've contacted Mr. Flores, whose ship,
The Golden Dawn
, is a Class K, capable of holding a crew of twenty-two. He currently has only sixteen men and aliens aboard it. If you wish to remain a part of our team, he has agreed to take you on. Otherwise, we'll set you down on the next agricultural world we come to, though I can't guarantee they'll view a pair of insurrectionists with approval. That is your choice. We're in the middle of a war, we're in enemy territory, and I simply can't do any more for you."

Brill looked at Dunyach, who nodded his head.

"We'll go with Mr. Flores, sir," said Brill.

"All right," said Cole. "Return to your rooms and collect your gear." As they left he turned to Sharon. "Contact Flores and tell him to come over here and pick up his new crewmen."

"Thank you, Wilson."

"No need to. Security men are hard to come by."

"So are Captains," she said, kissing his cheek and leaving.

And hardest of all,
he thought bitterly,
are
Captains who will stick, to their principles as doggedly as a pair of crewmen did.
A wistful expression crossed his face.
I
wonder if I ever really was one.